THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST OR HINTS TO A QUAKER RESPECTING THE PRINCIPLES, CONSTITUTION, AND ORDINANCES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE, M.A. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. THIRD EDITION London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883. "What is now to be done? Must Truth be for ever in the dark, and the world for ever be divided, and societies disturbed, and governments weakened, and our spirits debauched with error and the uncertain opinions and the pedantry of talking men? Certainly there is a way to cure all this evil, and the wise Governor of the world hath not been wanting in so necessary a matter as to lead us into all truth. But the way hath not yet been hit upon, and yet I have told you all the ways of man, and his imaginations, in order to Truth and Peace; and you see these will not do; we can find no rest for the soles of our feet, amidst all the waters of contention and disputations, and little artifices of divided schools. We have examined all ways but one, all but God's way. Let us, having missed all the others, try this."-Bp. Taylor, Via Intelligentia. ADVERTISEMENT. [Prefixed to the Second Edition, 1842.] THIS work appeared originally* in the form of Letters to a Member of the Society of Friends. It was suggested by a controversy which was dividing the Quaker Society. Its main object was to inquire whether an acknowledgment of the spiritual principles, which were professed by the Quaker body, involved the rejection of Christian ordinances, or whether one did not necessarily imply the other. This question was almost identical with another. The Quakers had sought to establish a spiritual kingdom in the world. Did not such a Kingdom exist already, and were not these ordinances the expression of it? Among many minor but serious mistakes in my treatment of this subject, I found that there was one which had tended to make my purpose unintelligible. The early Quakers affirmed, that the Spiritual Kingdom was defined by no national boundaries. But the Quaker Society has, in fact, existed only in England and in America. As I wished to shew the Quaker to whom I wrote that there was a spiritual body in which he himself might find a home, when the Quaker sect no longer afforded him one, I naturally alluded, in every Letter, to the English Church-speaking of her sacraments, ministers, forms of worship, &c. It |